4 ms·

They literally cloned the Apple II, I think you’re giving them a little too much credit.

• nexthash 6y ago
  With the resources they had (almost nothing) in the stilted, moribund economy of the Soviet Bloc, cloning the Apple II is quite an incredible technical achievement.
  • pvg 6y ago
    It was an eminently cloneable (and already old) computer, evolved from a hobbyist design. With state-level support, this is not by any means an 'incredible technical achievement' even for a small COMECON country (which had already produced things like IBM/360 clones, etc).
    • nexthash 6y ago
      Yeah, if you have the fab, circuit board manufacturing plant, and assembly plant then it is. Keep in mind that you are economically isolated from the rest of the world, forcing you to do things like copy designs to save time and limited resources for building the machines.
      • pvg 6y ago
        I mean, I lived there, I have some idea. Cloning this thing in the 80s was a no big deal. These places were neither as resource poor, isolated or technologically backwards as you seem to think.
  • trianglem 6y ago
    Not really, they put together readily available ICs on a standard board.